1. Field of Invention
The present invention relates to a method and an apparatus for automatically packing sausage links in containers and particularly the handling, grouping, and packing of soft deformable sausage links at high speed.
2. Description of Prior Art
Various types of sorting, orienting and packing machines are known in the art to pack elongated tubularlike articles into specific type containers. For example, cigarette packing machines effect such manipulations. U.S. Pat. No. 2,948,093 issued to Bonami on Aug. 9, 1960 discloses a method and apparatus for assembling cylindrical objects, such as frankfurters. However, most of the art known deals with handling of objects having substantial rigidity along their long axis and are unsuitable for handling soft deformable rod-like articles such as sausage links having fresh uncooked meat therein.
Presently, these type sausage links are being packaged manually and this involves a time consuming labor intensive process. The sausage links must be counted manually and disposed within a container manually with a specific number of sausage links in each row. Usually these containers contain 8 rows of eighteen sausage links. A disadvantage with the counting and handling of these sausage links manually is that it is a time consuming operation; it requires precise manual counting of the number of sausage links to be placed within the container; the sausage links are often damaged when manipulated by hand, particularly if the ends of the casing tube in which the meat is contained is slightly open; and is a costly and slow process due to the intensive labor requirement in order to achieve a reasonable production. Another disadvantage is that due to human handling, extra sanitary care must be taken when manipulating the meat as it is exposed to human environment capable of carrying bacteria